"This.... is not what I was aiming for," I grumbled. I sourly regarded Pumpkin Patch and the twenty-odd thestrals standing behind her, ready to swear eternal fealty to me in exchange for the promise of blood. Pumpkin Patch immediately looked like a kicked puppy.

"I-I'm sorry, your Dark Lordship," she said. "What did I do wrong? I thought you wanted as many thestrals loyal to you as possible!" She swept her hoof out, indicating the twenty-some batponies gathered in the throne room. "Look, I got you every single one in the Northwest garrison!"

I rubbed the temples of my helmet and slouched in my throne. "What I wanted was as many thestral infiltrators as possible," I said. "Agents under my control, as close to the Princess' thrones as possible."

"You wanted us t-to spy on Princess Luna--- and Celestia?" One of them blurted out.

I couldn't help but stare at him. "Hello?" I said, pointing at my own face with both hands. "EVIL VILLAIN? BAD GUY? What, were you expecting me to have you sell cookies door to door?" Several of them started looking decidedly upset as they realized that they were into it way up over their heads.  It was confusing sometimes. These ponies went from grade-school naivete to R-rated adult cynicism and back again without any warning. That's what you get from creatures whose crown rulers double as mother figures, I suppose.

"Oh unclench," I growled, waving my hand. "Not like I'm going to have you do anything more treasonous than abandoning your posts." That for some reason didn't seem to make them feel any better. "Go for now. If I have need of you I will send Pumpkin Patch or Jetstream to summon you." Muttering among themselves, they started to shuffle their way out of the throne room. I sat there cradling my head in my hands. "Dammit," I said to Chrysalis. "They're no use to me as infiltrators now. their faces and cutie marks will be on wanted posters from here to Canterlot."

"And they don't exactly seem enthusiastic," Chrysalis agreed. "I doubt they are completely trustworthy."

I ignored the irony and just grunted in agreement. "I noticed."

"Your Dark Eminence!"

"A moment if you please!"

"And now we come to the vaudeville portion of the show," I growled in annoyance. Dealing with the Flim Flam brothers could be tiresome. Their habit of introducing all their new inventions with a rollicking song and dance grated on my nerves. Tunnel drill? Fantastic. But two WEEKS and there were still Diamond Dogs humming that damned "Subterranean Excavator Six Thousand" song... "WHAT?" I snapped as the two boater-hatted ponies came galloping up, waving items around themselves in their magic aura. "And if you start singing I swear I'll break your kneecaps." Did ponies have kneecaps, I didn't know, I'd figure it out.

They balked at that, but pressed on. "Your Sinister Preeminence, we apologize for disturbing you--" the mustachioed one started.

"--But events have conspired to render one of the projects you assigned us null and void," the other one finished.

"You requested we find a way to discreetly deliver the, ah, sanguine cargo to your miscellaneous thestral minions..."

"So we noodled it over, and came up with a rather ingenious plan."

"A variation on our old 'Miracle Curative Tonic,' " Flam (I think) finished, waving a labeled bottle in his magical grip. A dark purple liquid sloshed within. "Thestral Revivative, we were thinking of calling it--"

"Just a bottle of blood with some food coloring and flavoring added to throw ponies off," Flim said waggling his eyebrows. "Clever, no?"

"But confound it if Her Royal Solar Prominence didn't beat us to the punch!" Flam huffed through his mustache, throwing down a newspaper. I picked it up and my eyes drifted to the circled article.

"Major reformation in Night Guard benefits," I read out loud. "New potions to be distributed. Upon revelation that the most commonly used thestral nutrient supplements were proven insufficient for their needs, the Crown moved rapidly to correct the issue. Among other corrections being made, a new liquid supplement has been synthesized for distribution--"

"No prize for guessing what the secret ingredient is," Flim snorted. "She stole our idea. We should sue!"

"---total ration increased, yadda yadda yadda.... family benefits enlarged and extended... looking into compensation for any loss or hardship caused by the inferior product... amnesty for those who have had to resort to desperate measures? Oh it's obvious what THAT means." I folded the paper and let it fall to the armrest with a slap. "Well, that's buggered. She outmaneuvered us." I was ready to spit. It never occurred to me that she could just hold out a cookie and say "Mommy forgives you" and the lot of them would fly right back to her.

I began fishing through the Alicorn Amulet, searching for memory-erasing spells. I still wasn't going to kill unless absolutely necessary, and it wasn't if I could get away with giving them amnesia, dropping them on somepony's doorstep and pulling a Ding-Dong Ditch.

"Are you sure you want to give them up?" Black Fang said suddenly, startling me. He spent most of his time standing silent watch next to the throne; he was so quiet and unmoving sometimes I forgot he was there.

"Hardly," I said. "But I can't trust them."

"Their loyalties are already divided," Chrysalis agreed. "Even more so than these two." She pointed at the Flim Flam brothers, who bristled. "Meh, don't bother. We know that when you two are bought, you stay bought." They scowled but relaxed. "These Thestrals... we have no way to secure their loyalty to us... to Darth Vulcan."

"I heard that little slip," I said idly.

"Maybe not,"  Black Fang said. He stepped out of his place and to my side. "But... perhaps you should see something before you decide, Dark Lord. If you would accompany me to the training room?"

"Very well," I said, curious. "Lead the way..."

A minute later we were in one of the chambers that had been set aside for physical training. It wasn't much, just a few crude weights and makeshift punching bags and a couple of sparring rings. Some few of the ponies, minotaurs and diamond dogs were there, staving off boredom by pounding the snot out of the bags... or each other. I stood in the doorway out of the light, so we didn't interrupt anything. "So. What am I looking for?" I said, casting around.

Wordlessly he pointed across the room. I first saw Jetstream. He was sparring with one of the pegasi in one of the rings. Both were airborne and duking it out with wings and padded hooves. Jetstream was flying literal circles around his opponent. He was a gray-and-black blur, striking from twenty different directions at once, swift as a hawk and agile as a hummingbird.

Wasn't he one of the remedial fliers....??

Further along was Pumpkin Patch. It looked like she'd taken her bungle personally, and was taking her frustrations out on a sandbag. My eyes went round behind my mask as the petite little pony hammered away at the bag. She was growling and hitting it with her forehooves so hard that the entire wooden frame it was suspended on was shaking. With a bark of anger she spun around and delivered a two-hoofed buck. The ropes snapped and the ruptured bag sailed halfway across the room, generating shouts of anger from those nearly struck by it. She winced sheepishly and went to clean up her mess.

Behind me, one of the Flim Flam brothers whistled. "As you can see, they may be useless for infiltration, but they do have certain... redeeming qualities," Black Fang said. "Night vision. Supernal hearing. And when they have recently fed on fresh blood..."

"Strong as an earth pony and fast as a pegasus," I finished for him.

"Stronger and faster," Black Fang corrected. "We changelings have stealth, but we are not much of a physical challenge... six mares fought their way through dozens of us at the Battle of Canterlot, after all. The minotaurs are strong, but few. And slow, and ground-bound. Likewise the diamond dogs. And even the roughest of the ponies lack a certain.... killer instinct. You would be remiss to let these ponies slip away."

"I'm curious, dear Captain," Chrysalis said, sarcasm practically dripping from her fangs, "as to how he is supposed to retain their loyalty. Or even their presence, when they learn of Celestia's benevolent amnesty?"

Black Fang was about to retort when a changeling came trotting up behind us. "Your Lordship," he said to me. "An earth pony named Harvest Seed waits in the throne room. He says he is calling in his marker." He passed a small scroll to me. I recognized it immediately. I'd taken to giving these little tokens of gratitude out to the ponies whom I owed a favor-- for giving my minions a hiding place, or misdirecting the Guard, or spotting us some grain or dried apples or whatever during the winter. I remembered Harvest Seed, vaguely. Bad tempered skinflint who wasn't above trading whatever was valuable under the table. "So what's he calling it in on?" I said.

The changeling told us. I rubbed my chin. I looked at the newspaper in my hand and gave it to the messenger. "Take this. Let the thestrals see it."

"Let them?" Chrysalis exclaimed.

"Let them. I don't want them thinking I hid anything from them. I have a plan, but... they have to know about this, first.

"I think I can actually work this to my advantage..."

Harvest Seed was the living dictionary definition of a sore loser.

He was a blue earth pony farmer with a white mane and muttonchops and a perpetually sour expression. He lived just one township over from Ponyville, and he had a bitter competitive streak a mile wide. He seemed to regard every other farmer as his rival and enemy. If any farmer of note grew anything or gained a reputation for growing anything, Harvest Seed seemed to regard them as a rival and did his damnedest to outdo them. If a neighbor grew a bumper crop of corn, one of Harvest Seed's fields would be planted with corn the next year. If they grew a prize-winning pumpkin, he'd be out there in his brand new pumpkin patch, sweating and swearing and trying to coax enormous gourds out of the earth. And if it turned out he couldn't outdo them.... which he usually couldn't... he'd spend every minute he could complaining about his "competition" and accusing them of every kind of chicanery he could imagine, up to and including sabotage.

Just this once, though, he had a fairly legitimate grievance. Among all his other efforts to outshine his neighbors, he had one of the largest fruit orchards in Equestria, with everything from apples and pears to cherries and citrus. If he'd focused on that alone, he probably would have made a name for himself, because he had a rare streak of genius that other ponies thought made him certifiable: he grew a large portion of his orchards in greenhouses. Plastic tents, actually, each the size of a circus bigtop. That let him grow and harvest year-round, giving him a big jump on every other farmer in the region.

Unfortunately his main rival (of many) in the fresh fruit business had pulled something absolutely boneheaded that threatened to cost them, him, and probably every other fruit farmer for miles their livelihood.

I arranged to meet Harvest Seed that night, in the greenhouse tent nearest the Everfree. When I arrived, he was already there, in his straw hat and grungy overalls and mad enough to bite nails and spit staples. "Fruit bats!" he yelled at me, the trees around, the sky above and nobody in particular. "Again!"

I stood in the shade of a 100 year old pear tree and stared at him through the glowing lenses of my helmet. "Fruit bats," I said.

"Not just any fruit bats, but vampire fruit bats! Dang them Apples!"

Wait. What? Vampire fruit bats and apples. I'd gotten lost twice in one sentence. "Explain."

"Those dang fool Apples over in Ponyville got a case of the stupids, I swear," Harvest said. He pointed in the direction of the named town, which lay just over the next couple of hills. It took me a second to realize that he was referring to another pony clan, not the fruit. "They already got one o' their shoddy orchards infested with fruit bats, and they were too soft-headed and soft-hearted to run the little thieving beggars off. And sure enough they spread to my orchards too... took me forever to smoke the little sods out and chase 'em off. Them strawberry and blueberry ones were a pain but dang them raspberry bats 're mean..."

Wait? What? I blinked my eyes, and kind of wished I could blink my ears too. I had the feeling I was going to be doing some covert questioning of my advisers about the flora and/or fauna, bats and the fruit thereof. I managed to resist the urge to rattle my head and kept listening.

"That orange brainless bimbo what runs the place---" Wait, was he referring to...? Oh right, Applejack, the Element of Honesty. Small world. Now he had my curiosity as well as my confusion. " she up and gets her farm infested with VAMPIRE fruit bats. And she gave 'em an orchard to breed in! And danged if they didn't spread over to my orchard too!"

He stopped and pointed up into the branches next to my head. I looked up and made my acquaintance with a genuine vampire fruit bat. In the name of the ancient chinese sage, Ho Lee Shit. I've seen bats before, giant flying foxes, even vampire bats. This was worse. This thing was the size of a toddler and was as fugly as Satan's bunghole. It was hanging upside down in the branches not five feet from my head-- God only knows how I managed not to scream and jump out of my armor--- and was glaring at me with a face made for hate.

As I watched it shot out its tongue (ohshitohshitkillitwithfire) and snagged one of the early pears growing next to it. It pulled the fruit to its mouth and began doing something absolutely pornographic to it. A few seconds later the shriveled remains of the pear fell to the ground with a wet, mushy splat. Ahhh, I get the joke. VAMPIRE fruit bats. I remained stone still. No way in hell I was taking my eyes off that thing. "And why has she not dealt with them?" I asked.

"That stupid treehugging yaller ninny that hangs out with her--" ah, the Element of Kindness. "--Convinced her to give up half an orchard for 'em. Cause the poor li'l darlin's was HUNGRY." Harvest Seed glared in the direction of Ponyville, his teeth gnashing so hard they were grinding the wheatstalk in his teeth to dust.

Now I had to cradle my forehead in my hand. "You mean the Element of Kindness arm-twisted a struggling farmer into giving up a chunk of her land to a bunch of ravenous vermin..."

"You guessed it, as BREEDING GROUND." Harvest Seed hawked and spat. "Some 'friendship.' Better them APPLES have a friend like that than me! She got them to give up the orchard to a buncha thievin' pests... and gave 'em nuthin in return except some bushwa about better trees growin' from the seeds they spit everywhere. Jim DANDY, that, if you come along twenty years from now.... too bad they'll have eaten the Apples outta house and hearth by that time." He smirked humorlessly. "Couple more years of them buggers breedin' and eatin' Ain't gonna be nuthin' left o' Ponyville except a fruitbat fart."

He shrugged. "Couldn't care less what happens to them, but their cute fluffy li'l friends are already spreading over HERE. AS you kin see." He waved a hoof around. I glanced around; I could see several bats silhouetted against the dark, and spattered bits of drained fruit all over the ground. "You an yer min-yuns gave me your affydavit that ifn' I scratched your back, you'd scratched mine. Well, this is it."

"I assume you wish me to dispose of them." I led him.

"Course I want that!" Harvest Seed bawled."G'wan. Use yer dark magic whammydoodle and git rid of 'em!"

"I prefer a different approach." I gathered a glowing crimson dot at my fingertip and flicked it into the sky. It burst with a pop and a flash of light. Then I waited.

After about two seconds, Harvest Seed snapped. "Well? When's it gonna-- YEEP!"

He was cut short when a grey-black blur flashed through the boughs of the tree I was standing under. The poster child for Fugly Anonymous hanging next to me disappeared; the blur swooped up into a nearby apple tree. There was a squeal and a wet crunch.

"Whut in Tartarus...?" Harvest Seed gulped. I decided to enlighten him. I cast a Vulcan's eye and sent it up into the apple tree. The green foxfire glow revealed Pumpkin Patch. She was hanging upside down by her tail, wings mantled around her as she drained the dead fruit bat the way it had drained that pear. Her glowing blood-red eyes never left Harvest Seed's own.

I stepped closer to the farmer. "Here's the deal," I said. "My thestrals need blood. They need flesh. They need to hunt. They will purge your orchards of your little fruit bat problem... and any other pests."

"By.. .by killing 'em?" he said, shocked. Ah, Equestrians. "Couldn't you just... magic 'em away? Chase 'em off?" he pleaded.

"They would come back in a matter of days," I pointed out. "And I would be leaving my magical signature all over your farm as well."

"but--"

"Are you as softheaded as that yellow pegasus twit?" I snapped. "If we just chased them off or magicked them away or turned them into a different kind of vermin that didn't eat fruit, they would just fall prey to predators anyway. That's why they breed like they do; they're food for something else. Nature doesn't stop working just because it happens out of your sight." All around us the night came alive with web-winged pony silhouettes and fleeing bats. The bats weren't doing too well.

"We won't be able to get them all," I said. "Nothing will. But we will come by regularly to thin back their numbers." Pumpkin Patch finished her lunch and dropped the shriveled bat corpse to the ground. She licked her wing claws and burped. "Oh, and you would be wise to keep your mouth shut now," I added. "Moreso than ever. After all... you wouldn't want the authorities to find out you've been hosting illegal thestral hunts on your farm, now would you?" I couldn't help gloating a bit as his pupils shrank.

I leaned in till the brim of his straw hat almost touched my helmet. "Tell me the truth. Do you really give a rat's ass what happens to these little overbreeding parasites? You want that hippy dippy politically influential yellow idiot to come around and make you give up a few greenhouses for the cute little darlings? Or are you interested in saving your farm?"

He looked at me then scowled. Behind all the cranky curmudgeon, I could see the desperation in his eyes.  "...Do it," he said.

"That's already happening," I said. "Welcome to the other side of the bridge you just burned."

There was nothing but silence for a minute, save for the sound of ugly little mutant hybrid bats meeting their fate. "I... might know a few other folk with varmint problems," he said, his voice low.

I nodded. "Pass on the word. We'll solve them," I said. "....fee negotiable."

Back on Earth we have a saying about how farmers deal with 'endangered' species on their property..... "Shoot, Shovel and Shut Up."

Maybe someday the treehugging idiots will figure out that if they want to help save some bird or rat or bug or worm, it's not a good idea to turn it into a liability to have it on your land.

"So this is the deal," I said to the gathered thestrals. "Celestia is offering you amnesty. You can go back, return to your jobs, your homes, your position, nice, quiet, and legal. And I'm sure Celestia and her little sister--" they bristled at the slight to their Night Princess-- "will welcome you with open arms.  They're even increasing your rations," I put an emphasis on the word rations, "So that you don't get too peckish anymore.

"They're even going to introduce a new, improved formula." I paused. "Who knows? This one might actually work." They stirred at this, a pointed jab to remind them that they'd been lab rats for years, at the cost of their health, fertility and even their virility. "Increased benefits, compensation, yes, Celestia is going to great lengths to win back your loyalty.

"So long as you're willing to go back to living the lie."

Bat wings mantled and flexed. I reached down beside the throne, pulled one of the old potion bottles out and sloshed it back and forth. "So long as you go back to drinking your dinner out of a bottle,  and forsaking meat, and you never hunt again. So long as you go back to telling your foals they are sick in the head for craving those things. So long as you go back to playing the charade that Celestia and her nobles forced on you, that you're all nice little grass eating ponies like everyone else.  So long as you go back to pretending that the lion can eat straw." I dropped the bottle back into the piles of treasure around my throne.

None of them spoke.

"Tonight, a marker has been called in," I said. "You will be going with me. You will be hunting. You will get your first true taste of flesh and blood, hot from the vein. And then you will get a choice.

"Those who decide that they are not up to this, that they can't cope, that they want to go back to Celestia's side... they will be let go. I will take no revenge nor exact any penalty. Those who choose to leave will be given a potion that will addle their memories for the past few days, and be left near a pony settlement. No harm, as they say, and no foul.

"But get this straight; any pony who stays with me, stays to the bitter end. After that, I will brook no betrayal. And my wrath will be terrible." I paused for effect. "Be ready to choose."

Pumpkin Patch and Jetstream stepped forward. "I already chose when you helped my wife and daughter," Jetstream said. "This? The Blood Libel? That's just the clincher."

Pumpkin Patch nodded. "I spent my whole life weak and tired, being told I was sick in the head by lying doctors, being forced to gag down those worthless potions," she said.  "Being treated like a disease. Luna didn't have a clue and Celestia didn't care. To Tartarus with them both." Several others raised their voices in agreement.

I held up a hand for silence. "Nevertheless," I said when they'd calmed down. "We will wait till after the hunt tonight. Then you will decide whether you have it in you to be a true predator. Whether you have... a taste for blood."

We lost five that night; three females, two males. Couldn't blame them; they had large extended families, too many things to worry about and too many years living as nice quiet little pseudo-herbivores. The Mayor of Whinnyton was going to have a hell of a time figuring out why there were five drunk thestrals sleeping it off on the steps of the town hall.

But that left us with fifteen. FIFTEEN who, with a bellyful of blood, were as fast as any pegasus and strong as any earth pony, and stealthier and more cunning than both put together. Stealth fighters in a world full of World War II prop planes. That gap in our favor wouldn't last long as Celestia got her own thestrals back in the pink. But by the time she had parity, if the rest of my plan went accordingly, It would no longer matter....